Really Wasn't Expecting This

My 10 is now 9.

He might not be a rocket scientist, and he might not have been the most talented young actor in Hollywood but he was on my list. You know…that list you have that if you ever in a million years had the opportunity you could…ya know…get horizontal and not get into trouble with your husband/boyfriend/part-time lover or whatever you’re calling him these days.

Heath Ledger is dead. Dead of a drug overdose. I don’t usually get too worked up about this kind of stuff…and I normally wouldn’t take the time to write about it, but I really liked this actor. I liked his movies and he seemed like a pretty down to earth guy. Was it intentional or was it an accident? At this point they aren’t calling it one way or the other. According to The New York Post online edition a bottle of sleeping pills was found next to his body. Yeah…it would take a lot to get me to believe that was an accident. Even if he wasn’t consciously trying to end his days it was no accident. I’m an insomniac. I have some sleep aids. I take a pill and put the bottle back…I don’t cuddle up with it. Or perhaps it had something to do with the bottles of anxiety medication, Diazepam and Alprazolam that he had in his home. We won’t know until the coroners report is released.

What is most upsetting about this story…aside from the fact that now there isn’t even a snowballs chance in hell I’ll ever get to see that man naked in the flesh…is that his parents found out the same way the rest of us did…on the news. Can you imagine? You’re fixing up a late lunch…maybe surfing the internet…nothing seems out of the ordinary…and then WHAM! You find out that someone you love is dead. You find out via the internet or a breaking news story on television. It’s hard enough to hear the news from a trusted friend or family member. Hard enough to see the look on their face or hear the tone in their voice as they prepare you for the bad news. But to find out about it with no warning along with god only knows how many people. I can't even begin to imagine.

And…while I know that the media is just doing their job…and we as Americans seem to lap it up like cats with bowl of fresh milk…can we have some kind of moratorium on releasing this kind of information? Can we have maybe a little respect…if not for the celebrities themselves…the family that surrounds them? I mean...couldn't the rest of the nation/world have found out about this tomorrow?

Last week it was Brad Renfro…he wasn’t on my list. This week it’s Heath Ledger…he was. By the rule of three we’ll be losing another young man of Hollywood soon and I could be down to 8. Hopefully the family of the third will find out through more supportive channels than this.

And no…you don’t get to know who the other nine are!